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Forget Me Not (80's edition) - First Session

Posted by
DeUniversumMysteriis
,
04 March 2018
·
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Introduction :I've run Forget Me Not (Great adventure from The Things We Leave Behind published by Stygian Fox) for three of my friends during two long game sessions. I took the liberty to set the story in 1987 because I wanted to give that "retro" flair to the game for my players. Also, we've used pre-generated characters because I thought it was more logical for this kind of adventure (With investigators having lost their memory). It was really fun to run and everyone had a good time. I can't recommend this adventure enough and we can't wait to play Ladybug, Ladybug Fly Away Home. Have a a good read.

First Session : A van on the side of the road.

A woman comes to inside a van. She is sitting on the passenger seat and she is hurt. There is blood on her face, right beneath her nose, and her head... It feels awful. Also, she's visibly peed herself.It's dark outside, but she is not alone. There is a man on the driver seat, he is unconscious, his head resting on the wheel. Behind them, in the back of the van, another man is lying on the floor. Unconscious too.

The woman wakes the driver up. He is young. About thirty years old. He has a mohawk and wears blue sunglasses and a leather jacket.

“What happened ? “ he asks. “Who are you ?”

The woman doesn't know what to answer to each question.She gets the urge to wakes the other man up. He is even younger that the other, but with a more conventional appearance. Both men have minor injuries and hell of a headache. Just like her.And nobody remember anything. Not even who they are.

The group checks their pockets, finding id cards, money and several objects. The woman seems to be called Rosamund Kane. The man with the mohawk is Lawrence Davies and he « feels » like his friends call him Larry. Last, the other man is called Thomas Woodhouse. All of them seem to live in Los Angeles, California but they have no memories whatsoever. Kane finds out she is wearing a pendant with “R&L” carved on it, and Davies wears a crucifix around his neck. Is he a christian? Also, he has in his pockets a flasks of what appears to be vodka and a photo of a naked blond woman.

Around them, they found cables, broken monitors, microphones... It's like the van belongs to a TV crew except there is no video camera. Kane is the only one with a watch that is still functionning and the screens says that it's Tuesday September the 17th 1987, 08:24 pm. In the glove box, Kane finds two maps. One is a road map of the entire United States of America, but the second one is a road map of the state of Michigan and there are annotations on it... The road is marked from Detroit to a place called Clio. Woodhouse finds a Polaroid camera near where he was lying. He feels that he knows exactly how to use it (And he has a few films in his pockets).

Outside, it starts raining. Looking around, the group sees a farmhouse nearby. They decide to go there and check for help. They walk toward the house. Strangely, all of them feels the necessity to be cautious. They look at the corn fields around them, the tall grass near the road. Each shadow, each movement created by the wind make them uneasy. It's like they're expecting some predator will come out of the field and tear them appart.

They arrive at the farmhouse and Davies knocks on the front door. They can hear noises from inside, as if someone was watching the television. The sounds stops and then the door opens to a man who is about thirty-five or forty years old. He looks at them, his eyes widened in surprise.

“Hm.. Good evening. May I help you?”

Larry starts explaining the situation without letting anything in the dark. It looks like they just had a car accident, they feel awful and they don't remember anything.

The man is surprised, but his good side makes him invite the group inside. He calls for his wife, Angela, asking for blankets. He leads the group to the living room where a teenage boy is reading a comic-book.

Angela enters the room with the blankets and offers to prepare hot coffee for the trio. All of them accept with gratitude while the man, who is called Graham Baker, says he will call for his brother-in-law, a mechanic who could help with their vehicle. Thomas indicates that they were riding a van. Angel gives Kane an aspirine for her headache.

Dave the mechanic says he will arrive in about an hour. In the meantime, the trio asks questions to the Baker. Where are they? Is there something odd or special about that road where they had the accident?

The Bakers say that there is nothing special here and that the group is in Clio, a small town of Michigan. Basically, it's the middle of nowhere.

Dave Sheridan arrives with the van. He asks 80 dollars for his service, which upsets both Graham and Angela but Davies accepts to pay. The group gets inside the van and starts wondering about the situation. Looking further inside the vans and their belongings, they discover that some of the case containing the equipment are decorated with a sticker. It says “The Supernatural Files”. It looks like they were indeed a TV crew, but a special kind of crew. Ghost hunters. Paranormal investigators...With their keys, they find keys of a motel room. The Coach and Lantern Motel... Clio, Michigan.They decide to go there.

When they arrive, Kane has a flash-back. It's the end of the afternood and they are parking the van in the motel's parking lot. Inside the van, there is a fourth person : a pretty young woman with red hair. And all of them seem to know each other.

Kane explains her vision and everyone start to worry about where that red haired woman might be right now. Kane and Woodhouse decide to go to their respective room while Davies says he wants to go to the reception and ask a few questions to the motel's employee.

In the reception, Davies meets Lisa Sawyer. She is surprised by his appearance and asks if he is alright. Davies starts asking questions, telling the truth about his amnesia. Lisa agrees to help, saying that the group arrived on the evening of the 14th of September, three days ago. She finds odd that Davies doesn't remember the woman with the red hair, who, she says, is called Lyn Cartwright and has paid for the rooms. Thanking the young woman, Larry leaves and goes toward to his room.

Inside Room #5, Woodhouse finds a black t-shirt with “The Supernatural Files” printed on it, and a few documents. They're press articles. He starts to read one of them. It's about two homicides committed in a small isolated farm near Clio, Michigan...

In her room (#3), Kane starts snooping around. She finds clothes, a laptop and a bra... Too small for her. It triggers another vision. She is in bed with the woman with the red hair. They've just had sex. She savors the moment. They're not in the motel room but in a totally different place. Home? Suddenly, the vision shatters. Kane only sees the face of the woman, covered in blood and tears. Her mouth is deformed by a silent scream. Something is wrong. More blood starts pouring down on her face. Her eyes get bloodshot and then are gouged out. Kane hears a voice. An awfully powerful voice saying “THEN YOU WILL DIE!!”. The vision dissappears and Kane starts shrieking. Soon after, Davies and Woodhouse enter the room, asking what is going on. Kane explains. She thinks the woman is or was in danger. Davies tells the others about his discovery : the woman is called Lyn Cartwright and she paid for the rooms. So, maybe that woman is their boss. Woodhouse shows the articles to the others. Double homicides in Clio. A unindentified corpse found in the fields. A horror movie project that was shut down by the town. A missing teenager... And all of this is connected to the Cooper farm where Andrew Cooper killed his wife and son because “They were inside them”.

They agree that they should get some sleep now. But Davies decides otherwise. He wants to search his room first. There, he finds videotapes for a camera (But not camera) and some audiotapes too. The videotapes are annoted “B-Roll” and the audiotapes have names written on them. But Davies doesn't have anything to play them. He goes to the van and search for such a thing but there is nothing he can use.He goes to the reception, where there is a man (Thomas Sawyer, Lisa's husband). He asks if he has a tape-player or something like that and if he could borrow. The man agrees but when Davies tries to convince him to give the key of Lyn's room, he refuses. Davies thanks the man and goes back to his room to listen to one of the tapes. It's an interview of two teenagers : Alexis Romanov and her friend or boyfriend James Burke. They says that they went inside the Cooper farm because one of Jimmy's friends challenged them to do so. Inside, they saw a ghost and then they fleed. The tape stops and suddenly, Davies starts hearing voices. Kane's, Woodhouse's and even his own voice. There is also another woman's voice and he assumes that it's Lyn's. Everyone is screaming and panicking about a closed door. And then something happens. Lyn screams and Davies hears a powerful voice, so powerful that it hurts to hear it : “DO YOU WANT TO LIVE???”

Half scared, Davies goes to sleep.

Wednesday September 18th. 09:30 am.The trio wakes up painfully after a terrible night. All of them had bizarre nightmares and Woodhouse even woke up beneath his bed!

Also, they all still feel horrible and Kane now has one of her eyes completely bloodshot. Oddly, when searching for clothes in his bag before going to the bathroom, Woodhouse got the sensation that something, some bug, was crawling up his arm. It terrified him so much that he pulled out his hand of the bag but there was nothing in there.

During breakfast, they discuss about the night and their horrible dreams. Davies is startled when Kane mentions “white spider-like things”. He remembers hearing the two kids from audiotape talk about “fat white spiders” they saw in the Cooper farm.

The group listens to the other videotapes. Ghost stories. Spiders crawling out of a swollen dead cat. McCumsey Road. The very road where they woke up. Did they go to the Cooper farm? Did something happened to them in there? Was this the cause of their amnesia? What if Lyn was still there??

They ask the man at the reception (Now Bob Sawyer, Thomas' father) if they could check inside Lyn's room. Kane lies about something important Lyn's forgotten there. It works and Bob leads them there. He allows them to go inside but under he will watch to make sure they don't still anything or snoop inside the woman's privacy. Davies tries his best to distract the old man while Kane and Woodhouse search the room. Woodhouse finds a laptop computer he manages to gain access to. Kane finds a novel in Lyn's luggage. IT from Stephen King. It looks like her girlfriend was into horror stories. She also finds notes about interviews that have taken place on the 16th of September and possibly on the 17th of September. She recognizes a name in the list : Vanessa Volker. It the real estate agent mentionned in one of the press articles found by Woodhouse. She is supposed to be in charge of the Cooper farm.

Davies' conversation with Bob Sawyer takes an unexpected turn when the latter mentions that the man's nose is bleeding. And it is bleeding a LOT. Davies tries his best to contain the blood and starts feeling dizzy. He sits on the bed. Bob leaves the room to search for something to clean the blood on the floor.

Now, all of them is worried. First the amnesia, then Kane's eye, now Davies' nose. What the hell is wrong with them?

Woodhouse takes this opportunity to see what's on the laptop. He finds the same list on the laptop but also some emails about their travel to Clio. It confirms their first impression : it was a scheduled trip and Lyn must be the show's producer. He also finds some “romantic”emails sent by Lyn to Kane. They were indeed in a secret (and pretty steamy) relationship.After Davies stopped bleeding, the group decides to do some research about the Cooper farm. Maybe they could find something at the Clio Historical Society.

There, they meet Lilly Austin. A 68 years old eccentric woman with a dark sense of humor. Apparently, they've met her the day before but they don't mention the amnesia and says they were just pretending to have forgotten her. Amused, the old woman gives them a hand in their research. They spend the next five hours searching her collection of press articles, skipping lunch even when she offers them snacks (They're not hungry).

They find some interesting things about the farm. First of all, it was built by an man called Edmund McCumsey that came from the United Kingdom to Clio to build his house with the help of german workers, back in 1947. He was an historian and he was known for a book published in 1937 about labyrinths... They were rumors about a treasure hidden inside a vault the man had built beneath his house (The man had enough money to pay the construction of the road connecting the house to the town so...). Three men went missing in 1948. One of the men's wife told the police that the trio was going to break inside McCumsey's house and search for the treasure. The McCumsey's house was searched but there was no sign of the missing men.The next day, the three men reappeared, dirty and “confused” about what they were doing and where they were during the last 48 hours. The authories concluded that the men were drunk and the case was closed.A month later, one of the men died. Then another one, and this one's wife went mad. The third man died soon after with his whole family when his farm's burning.

Davies and Woodhouse suggest they should go back to the Bakers and ask if Zack, their teenager, already went to the Cooper farm, just like most of Clio's youth, then they shoud go interrogate Vanessa Volker. After all, it seems that she was the last person they were supposed to meet yesterday.

All of the sudden, Rosamund feels horribly ill. She wants to puke and asks Lilly's for the bathroom.There, she vomits some blood and also a few bits of flesh. She is very worried and ask the others to go to a doctor.

At the Clio Urgent Medical Care Center, they're all examined by Doctor Jacob Groom. The results show nothing out of the ordinary, even though all of them had horrible sensations when the doctor examined their mouth and throat. But because they talked about their amnesia, the bleeding and, most of all, because Kane did vomit blood, Groom suggests that they should go to Saint Mary's Hospital in Saginaw as soon as possible for further examinations. They may have a serious problem and the Clio Urgent Medical Care Center just hasn't got the proper equipment to reveal it.

The group hits the road in direction of Saginaw. While Kane is being examined at the hospital, the men will search local bookstores and libraries and see if they can buy a copy of McCumsey's book.

Two hours after Kane's arrival at the hospital, Doctor Cowie talks to her about the results. The imagery indicates a lot of “dark spot” inside her shot. In fact, those spots are everywhere inside her body. The doctor explains that it may be a form of cancer but he can't be sure. He recommends that they make another test : a biopsy. Kane starts worrying. Does she really have cancer?? Was it before the accident or did something happen to her yesterday? But... She is also worried sick about the procedure itself. The idea that someone will simply cut her open and check inside her... It makes her uncomfortable. She starts asking for another solution, but Cowie says there is no other choice.

Davies and Woodhouse get back to the hospital after they managed to buy a copy of the book. Davies had skim read the book on the road and he tells the others about the book's content.

In his eyes, it's nothing but the delusions of a mad man. According to McCumsey, there is a huge network of tunnels beneath the planet's surface. It was built by an ancient civilisation and it's because of this “labyrinth” that there are similitudes in distant civilisations, such as the Egyptians and the Aztecs having pyramids and mummies... Bullshits. But, maybe that's why McCumsey went to Clio. Maybe the rumors about a secret vault beneath the farm were true.

Woodhouse goes to the toilet but there he has a unpleasant sight. Two tumor-like bump had grown at the base of his neck. When he touches them, they start moving and then dissapeared inside his body.

Kane is talking about the cancer when Woodhouse comes back. She is really worried and doesn't know if she should accept the procedure. The two men manage to calm Kane down and to convince her to accept the biopsy. After all she really has not choice in the matter. Woodhouse mentions the two tumors from earlier and says that maybe all of them have cancer.She relently accepts and everyone goes to sleep. The operation is scheduled to tomorrow morning. The men are allowed to sleep in the hospital's waiting room while Kane gets her own room.

Once again... They sleep and they dream.

Thursday September 19th. 07:00 am.The orderlies wake Kane up and start preparing her for the procedure.

The men wake up thirty minutes later and starts talking about the nightmares they just had. Woodhouse goes to the coffee machine but he suddenly feels terrible. He goes to the toilet and has a bowel movement. But right before flushing the toilet, he sees something in the feces. Movements. Then four tiny white things with multiple legs gets out of the fecal matter and crawl out of the toilet. He is just too surprised to react but then he has the most horrible epiphany : the two tumors that MOVED inside of his own body. The MULTIPLE dark spots shown on Kane's scan results. The SWOLLEN dead cat that erupted with dozens of spiders pouring out of it. The symptoms. The BIOPSY.